I hope to be starting work with the Peace Corps in February 2010 (just waiting for the invitation). So since graduation in June I am traveling till work starts up.

Friday, August 21, 2009

The farm on the Moshav...

So it's been interesting on the farm that I worked on this past week, but I left yesterday because it was enough at this place for me. I got to the farm through WWOOF, a website where you can work on an organic farm in many countries in exchange for a place to sleep and food, etc...

The place I worked at was on a small moshav in the northern negev (desert) right next to Gaza. One lady lives there and runs the place and occasionally has volunteers coming to work. She is trying to make the farm self-sustainable and economically friendly. Another volunteer and I slept outside in a tent (not really a tent, but almost). We showered in an outdoor shower where we would fill up a bucket with water and shower by pouring the water on us (saves even more water then a 'green' showerhead) and went to the bathroom in a transportable composting toilet. Everytime the hole for the toilet fills up she moves it to another spot and grows a tree in the previous one. There was also a solar oven that could be improved, but it was enough to get food or drinks pretty hot. Also, everything in her house gets reused. For example, all of the water coming out of her kitchen sink fell into a big compost pile/tree/garden along with all the vegetable and fruit peels. The water from the washer goes to water a tree... you get the idea, anything that can be reused is reused.

During the week we spent some time weeding the field. There were tons of weeds, I don't think anyone had worked the field for a looonng time. We also made a water catch system so that she can collect the water from the roof when it rains. Pretty much we attached some piping to the gutter and through a filter it falls into a barrel so that it can be used to water the plants when there's no rain. Israel has a problem of not having enough water. And we converted a spot in front of her house from a big pile of weeds into a good-looking and fertile raised garden bed so she can grow some more vegetables. One of the days we also helped another older lady in the moshav with some work that she wasn't able to do herself.

A lot of what we ate during the week was from her yard. Herbs for tea and vegetables and fruit for eating. There was a Passion Fruit vine growing on her house so everyday I was able to eat lots of passion fruit... mmmm it was sooo good. Also, I learned quite a bit about permaculture and plants and lots of other stuff. But for certain reasons I didn't want to stay there any longer. So, in a couple of days I'm going to go travel in the north again, hopefully couchsurfing in small places in the middle of nowhere where it's really nice.

Sounds like a great experience bro. I´m trying to learn more and experiment with sustainable farming techniques as well. Reusing the grey water is a great idea and not enough people take advantage. Yesterday I started a worm compost tire with a drip system that produces nutritious worm juice...we´ll see if it works. The worms are busy eating some manure.